Under a federal law enacted in 2010, taxpayers now fund efforts by presidential nominees to begin their White House transition efforts even before the election. Unfortunately, it appears that Romney has now turned those taxpayer resources into yet another opportunity to make money.

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly famously opined during his post election analysis: "It's not a traditional America anymore. People want stuff." Though a sophomoric conclusion, O'Reilly is simultaneously right and wrong.

Mitt Romney was not the problem for Republicans this year. In fact, he was the best candidate that Republicans had, by far. Seriously. Consider who was running for president in the Republican Party this year.

If Romney had developed a greater ability to be authentic by confronting the patterns of denial and self-deception that automatically came with his aspirations, he likely would have been able to stand up to the politics of fear -- and elected president.

Election 2012 is only the latest example of human beings' incredible capacity to fool themselves when they desperately want to. And another reminder that today's GOP live on a different planet from the rest of us, with dangerously little regard for facts.

Seriously, a man running for the most powerful office in the country didn't bother to plan for one of the two contingencies that were guaranteed to happen last night? And he wanted us to let him make crucial decisions for all of us?

It wasn't about a mistake-filled Romney campaign, although mistakes there were. It wasn't about the hard-right tilt of the Republican primaries, although they trapped Romney into positions that sold in Oklahoma almost nowhere else. It was about ideas.